


petrichor

by iffiness



Series: fem!Tony stuff [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Female Tony Stark, Friendship, Gen, LETS TAKE IT FROM THE TOP, NO MORE BAD TEAM DYNAMICS, One-Sided Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Rule 63, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Team as Family, actual co-lead dynamics, rewriting EVERYTHING, steve and tony meet before avengers assemble, will add more tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-04 18:25:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15153020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iffiness/pseuds/iffiness
Summary: He was just about to get up and call it quits for the park, to try and find Brooklyn maybe, when he heard the subtle clicking of heels walking along the concrete path toward his bench. His attention turned to find the owner of the heels. His attention landed on the shoes themselves first, a bright red number with gold accenting the pointed tips, before following the trail of long, golden colored legs to the black skirt that was clinging almost sinfully to a wide pair of hips. His eyes trailing ever upward found a smart looking jacket with a red blouse the same color as the heels under it, the neckline coming up to form an upside-down vee as it came to tie in a halter around the woman’s neck. Her lips were painted a striking crimson, but her eyes were covered in a pair of sunglasses with golden lens that reflected his own appearance back at him. Her hair was artfully up in a dark brown, curly bun on the crown of her head, and it was only then, once his assessment was complete, that he realized she had been waiting for him to finish.





	1. new beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> uuuuuh hey i keep writing totally new stories without finishing any others? my bad. it just happens. anyway, this is me throwing a wrench at MCU cuz i'm still upset over like... everything? so hats off to another AU rewrite of all major events. i just want everything to actually be nice. happy. team as family feels, yknow? steve and tony being best buddies? yeah. this chapter is a total rewrite of how they even met. because it was necessary.

Central Park was both the same and totally different from what Steve Rogers remembered. As far as similarities went? Still benches, trees, a few of the statues and rocks he could remember being around, kids screaming, and food vendors milling around. But the differences… there were many of those. Too many to list almost, but he had spent the last two hours trying his best to do so.

 

It was just honestly too much. It had been one thing to wake up after he’d expected to die in the Valkyrie, but another entirely to discover that he had woken up _seventy years_ in the future. It had taken him no time at all to figure out something was wrong with the setup (he’d been at the baseball game they were playing on his radio, did they think he was an idiot?), and he’d skedaddled right out of whatever hospital room it was that they’d locked him up in. It had taken him a few hours of getting lost around the city, taking in the gigantic buildings, the ultra-bright lights and moving pictures everywhere, and the cars before he ever found the park. He’d been aiming for something familiar to ground himself while he tried to gain his bearings, but he wasn’t sure if it was better or not that he’d managed to find this bench hiding between a couple of overgrown bushes. It left him a clear view of the water, some kids flying kites, and he could smell hotdogs in the air but other than that he could still hear honking horns and helicopters and planes and God knows what else out there in the city he’d left behind.

 

He was just about to get up and call it quits for the park, to try and find Brooklyn maybe, when he heard the subtle clicking of heels walking along the concrete path toward his bench. His attention turned to find the owner of the heels. His attention landed on the shoes themselves first, a bright red number with gold accenting the pointed tips, before following the trail of long, golden colored legs to the black skirt that was clinging almost sinfully to a wide pair of hips. His eyes trailing ever upward found a smart looking jacket with a red blouse the same color as the heels under it, the neckline coming up to form an upside-down vee as it came to tie in a halter around the woman’s neck. Her lips were painted a striking crimson, but her eyes were covered in a pair of sunglasses with golden lens that reflected his own appearance back at him. Her hair was artfully up in a dark brown, curly bun on the crown of her head, and it was only then, once his assessment was complete, that he realized she had been waiting for him to finish.

 

“This seat taken?” she asked him, her voice coming across as smooth as any decanter of whiskey, as she pointed at the empty side of the bench he was on.

 

“Uh—. No ma’am. It isn’t.” His voice felt rusty and unused, and he stumbled over the words, but a part of him was proud that he’d even managed to speak at all. He’d met strong women in his time, Peggy Carter had been the strongest person he’d ever met honestly, but there was something else about this dame that really got him tongue tied.

 

“Well, now it is.” Her lips quirked into an amused smirk as she inelegantly took the seat beside him, in a move that was the complete antithesis to the aesthetic she had in her well put together appearance. She’d basically fallen onto the bench and sprawled out across her half, one arm coming up to rest across the back of it as she slouched back, her legs crossing at the ankles as she extended them out in front of her.

 

He only nodded in response, finding himself more willing to stick around, but at a loss of what to say. It wasn’t like he could just tell her he’d woken up from seventy years in literal ice and he was completely overwhelmed by everything around them. He wasn’t even sure it would be okay to ask about the small device he could see resting in her ear. He’d seen a few people with those today, and they’d all looked like they were talking to themselves, but he’d reckoned that probably wasn’t true. If everything was so advanced, chances were those little things in their ears were phones. Maybe. He wasn’t too confident in his guesswork, but it was the best he had going for him.

 

“It’s a little loud here, isn’t it?” The woman spoke up again after a few moments of silent companionship, her attention still focused out at the park in front of them, but her words obviously meant for him. “I mean, it’s been a while since I’ve been here, but I don’t seem to remember it being so loud, right?”

 

He was nodding before she even finished, his attention squared on her even though she wouldn’t look at him. “Oh, yeah. I agree. It’s been…,” _seventy years_ , “a while since I’ve been here too. I mean, it’s still pretty nice, and a lot quieter than the rest of the city I’ve seen so far, but it’s just not the same.”

 

“You not from around here, then?” She asked him, her head finally turning to him as she smiled again. It wasn’t the same as looking her in the eyes as they spoke, since her glasses just reflected his own eyes back at him, but it was better than talking to the side of her head.

 

“I’m from Brooklyn, actually,” he found himself admitting, even though he was pretty certain he was being confusing as all get out with the things he was saying. “It’s just, ah… different, y’know?” She was nodding along as if it made sense anyway, which lessened the worry in that had been building in his gut. “What about you?”

 

“Manhattan. Probably pretty obvious, all things considered,” the hand she had resting on the back of the bench did a lazy wave at her outfit, and he did have to admit that he should’ve probably expected that answer. “But I spend a lot of time in California these days. Malibu. Gorgeous place, if you ever get the chance to travel. I even own a couple of miles of beachfront if you’re into that sort of thing. Y’know? Surfing, swimming, tanning in the nude…”

 

He felt the rush of blood come into his face before she even finished the last word, and internally cursed his Irish ancestry every which way. That wasn’t… that wasn’t something people just _said_ out loud. That… there was some level of modesty required in conversation, wasn’t there? Or did that change with time too? “I… uh, no. I don’t… do those things.”

 

She let out a delighted peal of laughter as his cheeks got even redder, trailing down his neck and probably onto his chest as well, but considering it was a fairly adorable laugh he was inclined to be okay with being the object of her joke. “Oh, honey. You are bright red. A tomato. A firetruck. This is just the best day of my life. I bet that goes the whole way down, doesn’t it? That’s amazing.” Her laughter went on for a couple more minutes before she was able to reel it in with only the occasional giggle, her attention returning to the park in front of them just so she could stop seeing how red he was. “I _also_ own a few cabins if you’re more into the woodsy sort of aesthetic, which involves wearing a lot more clothes than totally necessary and is very appropriate for even the most prude of nuns. Or a villa, maybe? I have a few in Italy and France. I think we might have settled on a place in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago too. The world is your oyster. What d’ya say?”

 

“I honestly have no idea what’s going on right now,” Steve managed to get out as he listened to her ramble on about all these places she supposedly owned, his brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of what was happening. Was she… offering him a place to stay? Numerous places? After they had only just met? He didn’t even know her name yet, let alone anything else about the world at large.

 

Her lips took a distinct downturn at his words, nodding as if she’d expected his response and found it lacking somehow. The hand that had been resting on the back of the bench moved to push her glasses up to the top of her head, exposing a pair of wonderfully dark brown eyes that turned back to gaze at him. They were lined with black, and there was a shimmery golden powder on her lids that brought out the same tones in her eyes. “Yeah. Sort of got that. So, Brooklyn boy, got a name?”

 

“Steve,” he replied instantly, his body turning just enough for him to hold a hand out to shake. She took it with an amused smile on her lips, and he was pleasantly surprised by how firm her grip was. “Steve Rogers, ma’am.”

 

“Toni,” she replied in the same manner he had, and he watched as the smile on her lips turned decidedly wicked and full of mischief. Her eyes twinkled as she took her time, her hand still in his, before she finished telling him her name. “Toni Stark.”

 

His grip on her hand tightened in shock as he stared at her, suddenly taking in her features in a totally different way. Out of everything he’d seen today, all the changes that had gone on in the years he’d been gone, this woman was both frighteningly similar and completely different all at once. It was like when he’d first walked into Central Park, finding comfort in the familiar paths and trees, but still disjointed in a way that made him uncomfortable. Now that he knew her name he could see all the things he’d been admiring in a completely new light. He had no idea what to say to this woman who was clearly the child of his old friend. Well, he had millions of things he wanted to say, to ask, but they died in his mouth as quickly as he tried to say them. He had been tongue tied before by just seeing her as a stranger, but he was totally stricken mute now by just realizing who she was.

 

“Easy, soldier,” she tutted out quietly, her left hand coming up to tap at the knuckles of the hand he was still constricting her other one in. “I need that hand for my work.”

 

He retracted his hand quickly at that, stumbling over the words of an apology. He kept staring at her, more than a little dumbfounded by her presence here. What were the chances that he’d find a link to his past in a city as big as this? “You’re really…”

 

Her smile was a small, tentative thing as she nodded. “Yeah. Howard Stark was my father,” she paused as her eyes quickly glanced down his body, back up to his own baby blues as she shrugged a shoulder, “It’s nice to finally meet the man behind the legend. Pleasure to meet you, Cap.”

 

“Pleasure’s all mine, Ms. Stark,” Steve replied, a smile finally finding its way to his lips as his thoughts came back under his control. “I… it’s good to meet a friendly face.”

 

“Yeah, I’d bet it is,” her smile turned distinctly sharper as she glanced off somewhere behind him before her attention returned to him. “S.H.I.E.L.D. probably didn’t tell you much, did they? No, let me guess.” She waved her hand up and in his face, as if she was going to silence him with that alone, even though he wasn’t going to speak anyway. “They built some elaborate stage that looked, smelled, and sounded like the 40’s? As if that could fool someone like you.”

 

“Got it in one, ma’am.” The smile on his lips had yet to disappear as Toni continued to speak, her words growing more and more animated and her hand gestures oddly endearing as she went on. It more than made up for his reticence when she got to speaking. She was clearly comfortable in her own skin, and that was a lot more than he could say for himself right now.

 

“Idiots,” she bit out scathingly, sliding the glasses back down from the top of her head to cover her eyes once more. “C’mon, Cap, lemme show you around some. We can grab something to eat, you can come stay with me for a bit, and we can work on catching you up to the present. Whaddya say?”

 

She held a hand out for him to take, and he was more than inclined to take it. It would be nice to have both good company and someone to tell him about the world that had left him behind. Maybe she’d even be able to get him in touch with some of the Howlies, or Peggy, or anyone else he used to know. She’d talked about Howard as if he wasn’t around anymore, but that surely didn’t mean all the people he knew was gone. He was suddenly much more optimistic about what was happening to him than he was before, and apparently that showed on his face because not only could he see his big smile in her glasses, but he could see the smile reflected on her own lips as well.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set just before Toni found Steve in Central Park. Explains how she even knew to find him. There's a POV switch up, I've got it labeled in the work. Returning to regularly scheduled, moving forward in time stuff after this. I just had to get this scene out of my head.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing, Stark?” A commanding voice bit out, effectively shattering the moment that had built up between them when Steve took her hand. A tall black man in full leather and an eyepatch strode up to them, with another man trailed along behind him, wearing a nondescript black suit and a pair of sunglasses. Steve was more than a little annoyed to have the friendly bubble popped.

 

“Ruh-roh,” Toni whispered, though it was loud, dramatic, and he bet it was meant for the newcomers to hear too. “It’s the fun-sucker brigade. C’mon, Steve, we gotta go,” she laced her fingers with his, tugging him up to his feet (well, more like tugging at him until he stood up himself). She grinned up at him when he held onto her hand just as fiercely as the hold she had on him, pulling him along with her as she began to jog in the opposite direction of the duo coming at them.

 

“Stark! Get back here, damn it!”

 

“Finders keepers!” She yelled back at them over her shoulder, and in a turn of events that had him surprised she pulled him into a full sprint. Not that it was hard for him to keep up, but she was wearing massive heels and he was both impressed and intimidated by how fast she was regardless. Toni was giggling like a madman as they kept running away, her tight grip on Steve’s hand never letting up. The sound of it had him grinning too, and he was pleased to find that for the first time since waking up he was having _fun_.  He wasn’t too sure about what was going on still, but he wasn’t worried about it either.

* * *

 

**(POV change – Stark – Before meeting in CP, events leading up to Toni discovering Steve)**

Toni had been overseeing the zoning for the property she’d bought to build her new tower on when she got the news. She’d even tried to ignore the buzzing in her pocket at first, to keep up appearances that she really, truly, did care about what the city of New York had to say when it came to what she was and was not allowed to build (a big fat lie but Pepper would’ve killed her if she didn’t at least _try_ ). After almost two minutes of her phone just vibrating in her pocket it upped the ante to a vibration setting she hadn’t even been aware it could hit, but it sounded _exactly_ like a sex toy and was just mortifying enough for her to excuse herself to run off to a secluded corner to check it.

 

She tugged out the Bluetooth she’d pocketed at the beginning of her meeting and popped it into her ear in a move that was just slightly too aggressive, making her take the time to actually set it in properly because of how uncomfortable it was, and finally accepted the incoming call. “What?” she had hissed out, trying her best to look outwardly nonplussed as her eyes caught a few of the lingering workers’ that were very obviously trying to eavesdrop.

 

“So sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but I believe I’ve found something you may be interested in,” JARVIS’ dulcet tones greeted her ears, and if she wasn’t mistaken there was just a touch of scathing blandness in it meant to let her know just how interested he was in being the sounding board for her annoyed temper. “I understand you were so clearly invested in your current meeting and had no intentions of forgetting about it in a manner of hours.”

 

“Alright, wise guy,” Toni rolled her eyes, a smile flitting across her lips at the utterly dry tone. “Give it to me then. What’s up, J?”

 

“As you know, Stark Industries once funded an Arctic expedition for its annual search when your father ran the company,” JARVIS began, to which Toni only muttered back a disinterested _uh huh_ to. “In recent years we discovered more expeditions venturing there, but with no obvious signs of foul play you had elected to ignore it. The newest expedition has recently come to an end, and upon review of the ship log I noticed several discrepancies.”

 

“Okay? Beyond how weird it is that you kept watching them anyway,” Toni grumbled, shoving a hand into the pocket of her blazer. “Jarv, seriously. You know I could care less about this. If there are idiots out there who wanna play around in the snow and ice let ‘em. There’s nothing out there to find.”

 

“Those were my initial thoughts as well, ma’am. Still, I took several liberties in investing regardless.” And JARVIS, the prim and proper asshole, had the audacity to sound _smug_ about whatever it was he’d done.

 

“What are you, Skynet?” Toni remarked, and though sarcastic she couldn’t help but to be proud. Any time J took _liberties_ it sent her heart flying, because it meant he was truly doing things for himself. Just ‘cause he wanted to do them. That always made her happy.

 

“Hardly.” And yet again, his dry wit had her cracking a smile. “It would appear that the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division has attempted to falsify the logs. They were not as successful as they believed.”

 

“They hiding something?” Toni’s interest was suddenly piqued, running through the scenarios in her head that could be the culprit. SHIELD was shifty on a good day, but they usually weren’t so sloppy that JARVIS could pick up on it so easy. Whatever it was had to have gotten them in a tizzy. “Since when does SHIELD make mistakes like that?”

 

“I believe that the situation escalated in a manner they had not expected. They discovered the remains of the Valkyrie,” and _okay_ , Toni’s heart nearly leapt out of her chest at that news, “And within it, they recovered the frozen, but living, body of Captain Steve Rogers. Using several of the backdoors we had installed in their systems, I—…”

 

“Whoa, wait, wait.” Toni’s heart seriously could not take news like this anymore. One hand came up to rub at the skin around the ARC reactor in her chest, and her eyes closed momentarily as she took a deep breath. There was _no way_ this was legit. Finding the Valkyrie? Sure, she could believe that. It crashed out there somewhere, and its remains had to still exist regardless of where the ocean currents may have taken it. She could even believe finding the body. But… “Did you say _living_?”

 

“Indeed, ma’am. As I was saying, utilizing several of the backdoors we have in their systems I was able to track down several of the medical files involved, and discovered several camera feeds into holding room in which the Captain has been staying.”

 

She was pulling her phone out before he’d even finished speaking, and yep, sure enough, there it was. The feed wasn’t live, but it was real. Jarv wouldn’t pull her leg on this. Sitting right there, in a room that looked straight out of the 40s, was a very alive, very _confused_ , Steve Rogers. “You’ve got to be shitting me. Why wasn’t I notified?”

 

“I could provide a bulleted list of possible reasons,” JARVIS sassed as he fast forwarded the footage on her phone, pausing just shortly after a very irate looking Steve Rogers _broke the wall_ to get out. “However, I feel time is of the essence if we wish to get ahead of the game, as it were.”

 

“Did he just… he did. He just broke the wall. Just like that. Like it was papier-mȃché. Holy shit.” Toni rewound the footage at least four times to watch it again, mouthing _holy shit_ silently each time. She wasn’t even sure she was actually awake at this point, but hell, weirder things had happened. “Wait. Whoa. Wait a second, J. Are you telling me SHIELD _lost_ a _super soldier_? Is he still out there in the wild on his own? Did they brief him on the like… I don’t know, the future? Or is he just…”

 

“SHIELD files indicate they decided the proper route to take would to be convincing the captain he was still in the forties, until a better decision could be made.”

 

“That is so not good,” Toni murmured, glancing around the building site with a sigh. So much for doing what Pepper had asked her to do. But maybe finding a lost super soldier would win her some brownie points or something. “Get Happy to come ‘round with the car. And find Rogers. Keep SHIELD off him if you can.”

 

“If you will make your way to the corner? Mr. Hogan is awaiting your arrival.”

 

“Yeah, alright, Skynet. Try not to take over the world anytime soon, okay?” Really, she wasn’t sure when JARVIS had gotten so good at anticipating the things she’d ask. Not that she was complaining, but if anyone else caught on to how advanced he actually was they might have a problem.

 

“I am compiling a list of possible sightings for you now,” JARVIS said instead of deigning her with an answer, “It would appear the captain has been on the move for several hours. SHIELD has been tailing him for some time but has yet to make a move to speak with him.”

 

“Probably waiting to be dramatic,” Toni scanned through the footage and coordinates J had sent her as she crawled into the back of the car, nodding to Happy as he looked at her from the driver’s seat. “Haps, if you were a frozen super soldier who just woke up from a seventy-year long nap, where would you go?”

 

“Already been hitting the good stuff?” Happy replied, a brow raised in question. Of _course,_ he would think she was drunk at barely ten in the morning.

 

“No, seriously,” she drawled out, her lips pursed as she followed the errant relic on his adventures in the future on her screen. “We’ve got a super soldier from the forties running around out there who has got _no idea_ what is going on. I wanna find him before SHIELD takes him again. I mean, when it comes down to it, he’s basically mine, right? Howard put a lot of time and money into the guy.”

 

“Boss, you can’t just _own_ a person,” Happy reprimanded, sounding just as unsure of her sobriety as he did, but also resigned to his fate of driving her around during whatever delusion she was involved in this time. “But if I were, hypothetically, a guy waking up after seventy years? I’d probably wanna find something familiar, y’know? Lots of changes around here.”

 

“Something familiar,” Toni repeated, glancing up from her phone to Happy and back down, “J, check out Brooklyn for me? And maybe some landmarks? Coney Island, Central Park? The works.”

 

“There is a positive facial match for the captain in Central Park roughly fifteen minutes ago,” JARVIS replied promptly, causing Toni to grin widely.

 

“Gotcha. Haps, take us to Central Park. We’ve got a super soldier to steal.”

Twenty minutes later, Happy Hogan would regret ever doubting her because she did indeed come back with an actual super soldier, being chased by SHIELD agents, with the most manic grin on her face that he’d seen in months.


End file.
